Music Business As Usual

Good after evening, and welcome to… career goals.

So, I was thinking – I need to change jobs soon. By soon, I mean a year ago in September, when I originally planned to. The main reason that I haven’t is because job hunting is daunting, and tiring and very, well, miserable. Especially when a lot of companies elect to ignore you rather than respond with a negative. Not that being turned down is much fun either, when you tell them about your amazing hobby of Mongolian throat singing, to seem different and quirky, and they email back with something similar to “nah lol ur alrite m8”. So, for the last year and a half I’ve simply been sticking it out in my little garden centre job, in which I stand for varying hours on end, serving customers who are altogether a touch too haughty about the perennial pansies they’re buying for £3 off the clearance shelf because “they look half dead, can’t I have them for less?”. To which I wonder if I look like the manager of the shop, in my bright green and purple cotton and polyester t-shirt with “Can I help you?” emblazoned on the back.

I get the odd customer here or there, who come from the outer realms of common sense and decency, and find myself increasingly grateful that the general clientele of the garden centre are mostly posh chaps, who complain about absolutely nothing and want to speak to the manager to rectify the mild obtrusion they’ve come across in their important business trip to buy begonias, rather than the kind of degenerate people who might want to headbutt my teeth in because the diet coke went up in price. I wouldn’t have lasted in this job for very long were the latter the case.

Recently, however, my hours have decreased and I’m earning a lot less money that I was pleased to see in recent months. Word of this got out to my mother (via me) and her outrage has thrown sign-up upon sign-up, into my email inbox, for a number of job websites and applications. Most of which are music based.

Having gone to music university, and knowing full well it wasn’t about to hand me over to a bunch of big wigs in the industry, I’ve mostly settled my sights on doing something simple, and corporate, just to get me some money and move me out of home (to live with my lovey dovey boyfriend whom I never get to see. Not because we live far apart, he’s only the other side of London but our families don’t seem to like the other so here we are).

At no given point did I really think about getting a simple corporate job IN the music industry. Really obvious thing, but my brain keeps creative things and academic things very, very separate. The only thing I thought of was getting a job at PRS for Music, which is the company that supplies musicians across the UK the money that they earn from their music being played by other people and businesses. I would actually really like to work there, but there doesn’t seem to be much of an opening at the moment, so I’m going to have to wait and look at other things. It would be nice to work there and know that, even if I’m not performing alongside my musician friends, I’m with a company that is in charge of making sure they get paid what they’re supposed to. They also serve really nice jelly in the cafeteria.

Another thing I’d seen recently drifting about my Facebook, was a video on being a signer for concerts. I’ll elaborate.
So, sign language is something I’ve wanted to learn for a thousand years. I don’t know why but I’ve always been so fascinated by the idea of communication without words. An entire language made up entirely of gestures is a mental thought, despite that it’s been around for centuries (wiki said so. Take that as you will). The video I watched explained that music concerts are something that is missed when translating into the non-hearing world. Deaf people can enjoy the view of a concert, but there’s no real way of following along with the music, outside of just feeling the pulses from the speakers. So, the lady in the video explained how they were adapting sign language into lyrical sign language. She said that it’s difficult to simply sign exactly what the lyrics are, as it would take too long and the moment would have passed in the song. Not to mention that it wouldn’t necessarily have the same feeling, or emotion as the lyric. So instead, they’ve adapted the signs to be shorter and better represent the lyrics meaning and also to follow along with the rhythm and flow of the music, so that not only can deaf people know what the songs are, and where they are in the songs, but also it’s more interesting to watch than someone glibly signing along like they’re in a board meeting.

This video has inspired me so much that I’m seriously considering it. I don’t even know how I would go about it. I mean, obviously, I would have to fluently learn sign language first, and THEN seek this job out, but what an amazing combination of things I love to casually come across on my daily internet stroll. Could you even imagine touring with bands you love, while also allowing someone with a disability to fully enjoy what they usually wouldn’t be able to? I could almost cry at the thought.

Meanwhile, I’ll settle for other simple corporate music jobs. And I’ll dream of rocking out with my hands out on stage for a Fall Out Boy concert. Whilst crying.